Not my Man
by lardlegs
Summary: Wolverine has been acting strange lately. He's been hiding something from Marie. Is he cheating on her? What will Marie do when she finds out his 'secret?


Wolverine is cheating on me. I mean I haven't asked, he hasn't directly said but… he has been acting differently. Coming home late, even after missions, withdrawing from sex, and then falling asleep straight after. He crawls into our bed smelling like cigarette smoke, alcohol and cheap women's perfume- perfume that I don't wear.

It obvious that it can't he can't be cheating on me with anyone from within the mansion. Jean and Scott have been happily married for two years now. They are even talking about moving out from the mansion as Jean is expecting their first baby.

It couldn't be anyone else from the mansion because everyone knows I would rip them apart with my bare hands, if they even _thought_ about sleeping with Logan. And then I would happily skin Wolverine alive and make him into my own personal throw rug.

Jubilee and Kitty keep reassuring me that he is not cheating on me, that he is still madly in love with me. I used to believe it because when Logan commits, he doesn't hold anything back. I was equally his as he was mine but three months later he is still incredibly distant and behaviour erratic.

He's been acting restless.

I offered him a way out.

He grabbed my arm so tight, and looked at me like I was crazy. He used sex as a means to distract me. A guilty conscious? Maybe.

I call him Wolverine now. Logan is the man who I love but is never with me anymore. The man that sneaks in at three in the morning is not my Logan; the man who never reaches for me in his sleep is not Logan. The Wolverine is the man I compete with now.

I knew I was foolish as to actually believe I could tame the Wolverine. Make him settle down and grow some permanent roots, hell everyone was against it at the beginning. Everyone warned me that I could never tame the animal that would always be Logan. I didn't listen. I was in love and I thought that if Logan could accept my toxic skin, then I could handle his 'inner beast'. I mean I have his memories, I know his inner most thoughts, if anybody could have taken on the Wolverine and actually won it should have been me.

I really did think I had managed to capture Logan's roguish heart. Obviously Wolverine had other agendas.

The familiar roar of Logan's bike is the first indication that he is has arrived back home. I lift my head up slightly off my pillow to read the blaring red numbers on the bedside clock, 2:37 AM, an early night for the Wolverine.

A tear unwittingly rolls down my cheek as I choke back on a sob. Why does he do this to me every night? Why can't I confront him about it?

His boots thump on the wooden stairs and I know he is getting closer to our room. I wipe away my tears quickly, from previous experience I don't dare bury my face in my pillow, the tears like to collect there.

The door creaks open, and I know he can tell that I'm not asleep. I don't turn to face him. I don't move. I can hardly breathe.

Wolverine doesn't offer me a word as he methodically takes off his clothes and boots before wondering into the bathroom. The shower goes on and then off. Is he washing away the evidence of having spent the night with another woman? I can't help but think. My stomach twists into a giant knot. He is suddenly back in the bedroom.

I try not to react as he slides in between the covers. Without him ever knowing, my heart silently breaks when he turns and sleeps away from me, I can still smell the waft of alcohol on him.

I don't fall asleep for a very long time.

*-*-*-*

"Girl, did Logan keep you awake all night again! Boy that man is bad, you look dead off your feet!" Jubilee exclaimed, when I sat down next to her for breakfast the next day.

I manage a weak smile. "Yeah, he's been keeping me up," But not for the reasons Jubilee suspected.

This morning when I woke up, Wolverine had already left; there was no trace of evidence that he had even been there to begin with. I quickly scanned the dinning hall, but I already knew Log- I mean Wolverine was not here.

"You know what Jubes, I'm not really hungry, I'll be down in the Danger Room if anyone needs me," I hear myself saying, pushing away my uneaten breakfast.

I hated to think of myself as the poor victimized woman who couldn't get her act together. The poor lovestruck fool who couldn't leave the love of her life, let alone gather the strength to confront him about her fears.

"Who did Wolverine think he is? Jerking me around like I'm a little lost dog who will do and act and stay as he commanded! Who is he to sneak around and come home late and act like everything is roses and butterflies!

I am my own woman and if Wolverine isn't happy in the relationship, well its not like I'm forcing him to stay!" I rant outloud.

I didn't even realize that I had changed, gotten down to the danger room and had even started the stimulation until a strong voice called out, "End stimulation."

"Stimulation ended." Was the responding answer.

I bent over, so I could catch my breath. I didn't even realize I had given myself such a hard and vigorous workout until it had ended, too wrapped up in my thoughts and anger about Logan. God I loved him. I will always love him.

That's why I didn't want to lift my head up; I didn't want to meet his eye. I didn't…couldn't look up at the man; I've been sharing with someone else these last couple of months.

I didn't want him to see the depth of my love for him, to see how much I needed and still wanted him. How hurt I am and how I couldn't take the sneaking around anymore. I didn't want him to see the defeat in my eyes. Because I knew that I could never leave Logan. Not even if he openly admitted that he was fucking around on the side. I loved Logan too much. I physically ache for him when I am not around him, I would gladly die for him because when Logan touches me he _touches _me. He was the first man to ever voluntarily reach out for me and not be afraid.

"You missed your classes," are his first words directed at me.

Like some other students who decide to stay on, we all become teachers in the institute. We teach the younger students how to harness their 'gifts' and their 'abilities' and to help foster their own definition of 'normal' and not get sucked into what most anti-mutant people declared it was. I prided myself on my abilities as a teacher, to show my students that it is okay to reach out to other people, to feel safe to touch people – physically, mentally and spiritually.

I lift my head up reluctantly and wipe my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand, "I haven't been in here for that long."

"Rogue, you've been in here all morning."

His choice in names makes me inhale sharply; my stomach contracts painfully another blow to my already crumbling world.

"You don't have to worry about me, its not your job," I mutter as I walk past him to get out.

"What?" Wolverine growls out in bewilderment, catching my bare arm in a firm hold.

I look oddly at the contact of our skin. It feels like it has been forever since our last platonic skin on skin contact. Everything else in the last couple of months has always inevitably leaded to sex.

Wolverine let go of my arm quickly with a hurt expression on his face. It was apparent that I said that last thought out loud.

"Do you love me Logan?" I don't wait for his response, half afraid that he was going to say no. "Close your eyes for me."

He looks at me with a strange look in his eyes for a moment, his eyes searching mine for something; I don't know what exactly but eventually his eyes flutter shut. Logan could never deny me anything.

I close my own eyes too. To switch on and off my skin, took some concentration. I wanted it on. I had to know.

I reach out and kiss him. Softly. Only a sweeping brush across the lips, but already I could feel the pull. I deepen the kiss, holding his head in between my hands. Logan gripped onto my shirt tightly in response but doesn't shove me away. He could sense how desperate I was for contact. For his touch. For his memories.

I break away with a shuddered gasp. Logan drops to the ground like the sack of metal that he really is. Instantly I am on him. "You bastard! You absolute bastard!"

I am crying, Logan is slowly coming around; I am relieved that I haven't hurt him but before I can distinguish between my feelings of hurt and relief he instantly flips me over so I am now on my back on the danger room floor.

"Does that satisfy your knowledge darlin'? Too chicken to ask me yourself you had to use your mutation against me to find some answers?"

"Go to hell Wolverine. Leave me the FUCK alone!" I scramble out from underneath him and run brokenly out of the room.

I was dry heaving in the bathroom when Jean found me. I couldn't see her face but I know she was mixed between empathy and mild disappointment. I had after all used my powers against another mutant, for my own selfish need and gain. A painful lesson I had already learnt in my first year just after I arrived here in the mansion.

I sob harder into the porcelain bowl.

Jean sighed as she crouched down beside me, gently rubbing my back and holding my hair back.

"He loves you, you know," Jean stated when I finished heaving and leaned my flush face against the welcomed cold.

"You hurt him by doubting him and then using your power instead of asking him."

"Jean, I don't need a lecture," My voice coming out croaky and misused.

Jean titled my head up so I looked directly into her eyes, "Someone has to tell you."

I closed my eyes. This was so painful. In one fool hardy moment had destroyed the only love I had ever known.

"He is cage fighting Jean. He drives for hours and hours and risks his life for a thrill, a thrill that once upon a time I gave him."

"Yes, but he always comes back home to you. He hasn't left you. He will die for you. He has already risked his life for you three times now and will without a doubt go down protecting you,

"Talk to him Rogue, he is confused as to why you would go to such lengths as to find out something."

I let out a bitter laugh, "He thinks I'm a coward and I am."

Jean shook her head as she gathered my up in her arms. I could tell even though she was soothing and gentle with me that she thought I was a coward too.

The next few days we avoided each other. I slept in Jubilee's room and drifted from one day to another. Wolverine on the other hand was on a warpath and practically bit anyone's head off if they came anywhere near a ten foot radius of him.

I spent the nights lying awake trying to sort out the flux of information Wolverine had given me. What he had been doing for the last couple of months, how he thought that nothing had changed between us, how much he loved me, how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, how much he wanted to start a family with me and move away with him to Canada.

It was only then did I realize that our dreams and visions had always been united in what we wanted for each other.

I would see him in the danger room, pounding out his frustrations, but he wouldn't talk to me. He wouldn't catch my eye as we passed each other in the hallway and the odd chance that we did catch each others eye it was like he didn't love me, like he didn't even know me.

I guess I could understood where he was coming from, he was clearly not happy with me, hell even I was disgusted with my actions. In retrospect, I should have never used my mutation against him. I could have seriously hurt him I could have killed him. That thought alone nearly undid me.

Finally, after Jubilee non-so subtlety kicked me out of her room and told me to get my act together, I found myself back in my- our room. His unique scent of soap, sweat and man filled the air and instantly I was calmed.

Sub consciously I changed out of my own clothes, that I had been wearing and changed into my sweats and one of Logan's flannel shirts. I loved the safety and warmth his various pieces of clothing had on me. It gave me a comforting sense that I was _his_.

Our room was special to us; it was the second symbol of our life together. The first being the dog tags that still hung around my neck. However, decorating this room brought back a lot of good memories. I could have bought floral sheets and Logan would have loved them, as long as I was sleeping next to him.

Things were different now.

My neck snapped around, nearly giving me whiplash as the door opened slowly. I could tell he could sense me. I could sense him too. I was already going crazy for him.

The door swung open and Logan, in all his glory, stood before me. His eyes raking over my attire like a man starved of water in a burning desert.

He was a man of temptation and to me he was sin himself. Logan was my perfect man- strong, masculine, the ironically enough the epitome of all male goodness. It had been so long since we last touched, since we last kissed.

"Marie," His voice came out in a seductive whisper. Without warning I was instantly in his arms.

His lips crashed against mine, both of us desperately trying to claim each other again. He lifted me up so I wasn't touching the floor and I instinctively wrapped my legs around his strong defined torso.

His shirt fell from my body, his belt thrown across the room. Everything that surrounded us, blurred out until all that was left was just _us_. Logan always had this special way of completing me. So fully, so deeply, so amazingly.

He whispered my name a thousand times in my ear, whispering endearments whilst telling me how much he loved me, how much he needed me, how good I felt in his arms, how he would never let me go.

Pushing me up against our door, he slid my sweats down my legs, his hard body keeping me firmly trapped between him and the door. My hands desperately grabbed his shirt, wanting to rip it from his body.

He chuckled at me at my fruitless efforts of shirt ripping. And then proceeded to show me exactly how to undress a man. I devoured his body hungrily like a woman starved of chocolate after a bad break up.

Hurriedly I shoved his jeans down his legs, to pile down at his ankles. His excitement pressing against my stomach.

"God, Logan," I gasped out, his hands and mouth reawakening everything in me. He growled as I nipped at his neck, the pleasure getting to be immense.

We stumbled backwards as his knees hit the bed, continuing to kiss as we both landed on the bed, me on top of Logan. I lifted my head up and looked at him tenderly.

I knew in the back of my mind that making love was not an answer to end all of our problems. It wouldn't take away all the hurt and pain of his sneakiness and my deceitful actions. But in the meanwhile it sure felt good.

The culmination of our efforts was bitter sweet, so tender and rough yet laced with hurt and words still yet unspoken.

We lay there gasping for breath, his warm slick body still pressed firmly against my own. He didn't move as he stared into my eyes. My final words as I climaxed still ringing in our ears.

"I'm sorry!"

Logan looked at me and I knew intuitively that I am the only woman in his life. I would be the only woman in his life. He pushed my white streaks of hair behind my ear so tenderly that in that moment I knew he would never leave me. He shifted his weight so he wouldn't crush me under his weight and I knew that he still cares for me.

The Wolverine has always been a man who rode through life, with no expectations, no limits, no one woman. It was unfair of me to expect the animal to accept our new life together without dealing with some repercussions.

I thought that the X-men missions were enough to keep the Wolverine happy and entertained.

I never suspected that his desire to cage fight wasn't about me, but because that a man cant change over night, just like a leopard cant change his spots. The only reason he didn't tell me was because he didn't want me to worry.

"Rogue turn on your skin," Logan demanded, lifting himself up away from me and then settled himself beside me, holding me affectionately against him.

"What?"

"I need you to know something and since you like this method so much…" Logan teased as he stroked up and down my bare side, causing goose pimples to rise up.

I haltingly closed my eyes, unsure of what he was about to reveal to me however I convinced myself that my love and faith in Logan would win out this time. I willed my mutation to switch on again. I had to do this. This time for him.

He kissed my shoulder lightly, too quickly and swift for my mutation to react, he kissed my earlobe and hairline, again too quickly for me to react. He tugged on my hair to turn me around so I was facing him.

Logan smiled at me – well leered depending on who was looking and then quickly kissed my lips three times. On the last kiss he deepened the contact and one clear message came through our shared bond.

"_Marry me. Marry me. Marry me. Marry me. Love me. I love you. Marry me. Marry me."_

He broke away abruptly his mutation already working hard to compensate the energy lost.

I blinked away tears. My whole body started shaking with happiness.

"Marie… darlin'…"

"You big idiot! I thought you were going to break up with me!" I screamed, hitting his chest playfully.

"Is that a yes?"

"What about cage fightin'? I hate knowing your risking your life on missions but if something happened to you while you were in the cage… Logan I could never live with that," I shot back.

"I promise no more cage fighting," Logan said seriously, then he put his hand on my stomach as rubbed my belly. "Not with this little guy,"

I gasped in shock, but already I could feel my body changing, Wolverine's residue gifts enhancing all my senses, so I could literally feel my body changing to prepare for a child.

"Marie, I love you, I do. You know I'm not one to make all this long speeches on undying love and eternal love but I promise to never cage fight again, I promise that I will always include you in my life, and I hope that now you will say yes," Logan rambled, my awed, dumbstruck silence making him nervous.

A slow smile spread across my face.

"Yes, Yes I will marry you sugar."

Epilogue:

So here we are, our newborn baby cradled in my arms tenderly. This new life is our fourth symbol of our enduring love and commitment together. The tags still lay around my neck, the room we made our home still stands solidly and the wedding ring on my finger still makes me choke back a tear or two now and then.

After Logan proposed we still had so many trust issues to sort through and we did, it was painful and hard. We had always prided ourselves on being the couple that knew everything about each other, on having unwavering faith and dedication in each other. It worked out for the best as we emerged as a couple more in love, stronger and prepared for the upcoming birth of our first child.

We had a simple but beautiful ceremony for our wedding, we took our honeymoon in Logan's little shack up north, and then we returned home to have our baby.

My greatest joy came when we found out – quite accidentally that our baby was immune to my skin. During my pregnancy, my skin would switch on and off without warning. Jean said it had to do with my hormones and my body adjusting to sustaining another life. It was also a relief for Logan when we found out that he did not carry any metal in his skeleton. For all purposes and beliefs he was simply a healthy little boy. All we could have asked for.

A lone tear slid down my cheek unbidden, Logan instantly caught it, frowning he asked huskily, "What's wrong darlin'?" He tightened his grip around my waist, drawing me closer against his solid form.

"Everything is just so perfect. Everyone and everything I love is right here in this bed. I don't think I've ever experienced happiness such as this. Logan, I feel complete. You know what I mean?"

Logan nodded. I turned around and placed our baby boy in between us, linking hands over the baby we shared a blissful smile. "Yeah darlin' I think I know what you mean. "


End file.
